Why the Chiefs haven't added more former AAF players

The Kansas City Chiefs added a player from the recently shuttered Alliance of American Football and have eyes on a few others, but they’re holding off for a good reason.

During Brett Veach’s pre-draft press conference, he spoke about what the league succeeded in and why they haven’t sought to add others quite yet. Here’s what Veach had to say:

“I think we still have a few guys. It was good to get that tape on Keith (Reaser) because he’d been hurt and he’s been out and just to see him out there performing at the level he did, it was good. There have been a number of teams to make some acquisitions from that league. We have some guys that are still on our board from that league, but we’re getting number-wise where I think as a GM you don’t want to put a kid in a bad situation. We have a 90-man roster, and I don’t know what our exact number is, but when we get to a certain point, we’re going to factor in the draft selections and then typically what we add in undrafted free agents. The last thing we want to do is bring five more guys in and then after the draft we add too many guys, and then you’ve got to tell these guys, ‘Well, we got some younger guys, so you guys got to hit the road.’ We wanted to bring in guys that we felt confident would be on our 90 and to not put those guys in a bind where they could have went somewhere else, they came here and then after the draft we picked up 20 undrafted free agents and we’re telling these guys that we don’t have enough room. We want to be fair to them, but at the same time we realize that there is some talent out there, and if we can maximize that, let’s do it.”

First of all, what the AAF did well was that it provided more tape for evaluators. Having a league to supplement the NFL allows more tape to get out there for general managers to see and use. Prior to the AAF, there wasn’t much new tape out there on developmental players unless they were playing in the CFL or the Spring League. That new tape allowed players opportunities they wouldn’t have previously received.

Veach is playing at the good-guy role in his decision to not add more players from the AAF. With only 90 slots on the offseason roster, Veach doesn’t want to end up in a situation where he’s forced to cut a guy who turned down other opportunities for the one in Kansas City. Several of the players that have signed with other teams are going to end up in the post-draft roster crunch. They’ll likely be cut after the draft or during the course of the offseason.

The familiarity with Reaser was a driving factor in why the Chiefs brought him back. They already know he can play on special teams, and now that he’s put some tape together, they know that he can do a good job at corner as well. It appears they have plans to keep him around and let him compete again throughout the offseason program, but for the others players they have their eyes on, Veach couldn’t be so certain.

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